Waltz Into Darkness (39 page)

They
still had the same colored woman he remembered, Nelly, to open their
door.

At
sight of him her face lit up and her palms backed to shoulders.
"Well, lookit who's here! Well, I declare! Why, Mr. Lou! You
sure a stranger!"

He
smiled sheepishly, glanced uneasily down the street.

"Is
Mr. Allan back from his office yet?"

"Why,
no sir. But come in anyway. He'll be along right smart. Miss Gusta,
she's home. And young Miss Marie. They'll both be mighty pleased to
see you, I know."

He
went in past the threshold, then faltered there. "Nelly,
don't--don't tell them I'm calling--just yet; I have to see Mr. Allan
on business first. Just let me wait down here somewhere until he
comes home, without saying anything--" He caught himself winding
the brim of his hat around in his hands, like a suppliant, and
quickly stopped it.

Nelly's
face dropped reproachfully.

"You
don't want me to tell Miss Gusta you drap in?"

"Not
just yet. I have to see Mr. Allan alone first."

"Well,
come in the parlor, sir, and make yourself comf'table. I light the
lamp." Her effusiveness was gone. She was a little cooler now.
"Take your hat ?"

"No,
thanks; I'll keep it."

"You
wants anything while you waiting, you just ring for me, Mr. Lou."

"I'll
be all right."

She
gave him a backward glance from the doorway, then she went out.

He
was on thin ice, he realized. Any one of them, even Jardine himself,
might have heard about it, could denounce his presence here, effect
his immediate arrest. He was at their mercy; he was putting his trust
where he had no certainty it could be put. Friendship? Yes, for an
ordinary man, of their own kind. But friendship for a man branded a
murderer? Those were two different matters, not the same thing at
all.

He
could hear a well-remembered woman's voice call down ringingly from
somewhere above-stairs: "Who was that, Nelly?"

And
at the momentary hesitation on Nelly's part, he involuntarily
tightened his grip on his still nervously circling hat brim, held it
arrested a moment.

"Gentleman
to see Mr. Jardine on business."

"Did
he wait?"

Nelly
adroitly got around the problem of telling an outright lie. "I
told him he not in yet."

The
upstairs voice, still audible but no longer in as high a key, as if
now pitched to someone else on the same floor with her, was heard to
remark: "How strange to come here instead of to your papa's
office." After which it withdrew, and there was no further
colloquy.

Durand
sat there in the glowing effulgence of the parlor, staring as if
spellbound at a small handpainted periwinkle on the surface of the
lamp globe, which seemed to hang suspended between himself and the
white sheen that came translucently through all around it.

This
is home, he thought. Nothing ever happens here, nothing bad. You come
home to it with impunity, you go out again with immunity, you turn
your face openly toward the world. And murder--human death brought
about by the act of human hands--that is something in the Bible, in
the history books, something done by the captains and the kings of
old. In the passages that you perhaps skip over, when you are reading
aloud to your children. Cortez and the Borgias and the Medici;
poinards and poisons, long ago and faraway. But not in the full light
of nineteenth-century day, in your own personal life.

This
should be my home, he thought. I mean, my home should be like this
man's. Why was I robbed of this? What did I do that was wrong?

Again
the woman's voice came, upstairs, calling with pleasant firmness from
one room to the next: "Marie. Your hair, dear, and your hands.
It's getting near the time for Papa to come home."

And
a younger, higher voice in answer: "Yes, Mamma. Shall I wear a
ribbon in my hair tonight? Papa likes me to."

And
below, sensuously drifting from the back somewhere, intermittent
whiffs of rice and greens and savory frying fat.

This
was all I wanted, he thought. Why have I lost it? Why was it taken
from me? All other men have it. How did I offend? Who did I offend?

Jardine's
key clicked in the door, and he swung around alertly in his chair, to
face the open doorway, to be ready when he should appear beyond it,
on his way through.

There
was the tap of his stick going down to rest, and a little drumlike
thump as his hat found a prong on the rack.

Then
he appeared, facing stairward toward his family, unbuttoning the
thigh-length mustard-colored coat he wore.

"Allan,"
Durand said in a circumspect voice, "I have to talk to you. Can
you give me a few minutes? I mean before--before the family?"

Jardine
turned abruptly, and saw him there for the first time. He came
striding in, outstretched arm first, to shake his hand, but his face
had already been sobered, made anxious, by Durand's opening remark.

"What
are you doing here like this? When did you come back? Does Auguste
know you're here? Why do they leave you sitting alone like this ?"

"I
asked Nelly not to say anything. I must talk to you alone first."

Jardine
pulled a velour tape ending in a thin brass ring. Then went back to
the open doorway, looked out, and when she had come in answer to the
summons, said with a brufiness that betokened his uneasiness: "Hold
supper a few minutes, Nelly."

"Yes
sir. Only I hope you two gentlemen'll bear in mind it don't git no
tastier with holding."

Jardine
spread out his arms and drew together the two sliding doors that
sealed off the parlor. Then he came back and stood looking at Durand
questioningly.

"Look,
Allan, I don't know how to begin--"

Jardine
shook his head, as if in dissatisfaction at the condition he found
him in. "Would a drink help, Lou?"

"Yes,
I think it would."

Jardine
poured them, and they each drank.

Again
he stood there, looking down at him in the chair.

"There's
something wrong, Lou."

"Very
much so."

"Where
did you go? Where've you been all this time? Not a word to me. I
haven't known whether you're dead or alive-"

Durand
stemmed the flow of questions with a half-hearted lift of his hand.

"I'm
with her again," he said after a moment. "I can't come back
to New Orleans. Don't ask me why. That isn't what I came here about."
Then he added, "Haven't you seen anything in the papers, that
would explain it to you?"

"No,"
Jardine said, mystified. "I don't know what you mean."

Hasn't
he, Durand wondered. Doesn't he really know? Is he telling the truth?
Or is he too delicate, too considerate, to tell me--

Jardine
consulted his glass, drained the last drop, said: "I don't want
to know anything you don't want to tell me, Lou. Each man's life is
his own."

Downs's
was his own too, passed through Durand's mind; until I--

"Well,
then we'll come to the point that brings me here," he said, with
a briskness he was far from feeling. He turned around in the chair to
face him once more. "Allan, how much would the business bring as
it stands today? I mean, what would be a fair price for it, if
someone were to come along and--"

Jardine's
face paled. "You're thinking of selling, Lou?"

"I'm
thinking of selling, Allan, yes. To you, if you'll buy out my share
from me. Will you? Can you ?"

Jardine
seemed incapable of answering immediately. He started walking slowly
back and forth, on a short straight course beside the chair Durand
sat in. He clasped his arms. Then presently he locked hands over his
two rear pockets, and let the skirt of his coat flounce down over
them.

"You
may as well know this now, before we go any further," Durand
added. "I can't sell to anyone else but you. I can't put in an
appearance to do so. I can't approach anyone else. The lawyer will
have to come here to your house. The whole thing will have to be done
quietly."

"At
least wait a day or two," Jardine urged. "Think it over--"

"I
haven't a day or two in which to wait!" Durand slowly wagged
his head from side to side in exasperated impatience. "Can't you
understand ?Must I tell you openly?"

In
a moment more, he cautioned himself, it will be too late; once I have
told him, I will be completely at his mercy. What I am asking him to
buy from me, would go to him by default anyway; all he would have to
do is step over to that bellpull over there--

But
he went ahead and told him anyway, with scarcely the pause required
by the warning thought to deliver its admonition.

"I'm
a fugitive, Allan. I'm outside the law. I've lost all my rights of
citizenship."

Jardine
stopped his pacing, stunned. "Great God!" he breathed
slowly.

Durand
slapped at his own thigh, with a sort of angry despair. "It's
got to be right tonight. Right now. It can't wait. I can't. I'm
taking a risk even staying in the town that long--"

Jardine
bent toward him, took him by the shoulders, gripped hard. "You're
throwing away your whole future, your whole life's work--I can't let
you--"

"I
have no future, Allan. Not a very long one. And my life's work, I'm
afraid, is behind me, anyway, whether I sell or not."

He
let his wrists dangle limp, down between his legs, in a cowed
attitude. "What are we going to do, Allan ?" he murmured
abjectly. "Are you going to help me?"

There
was a tapping at the door. Then a childish voice: "Papa. Mamma
wants to know if you're going to be much longer. The duck's getting
awfully dry. Nelly can't do a thing with it."

"Soon,
dear, soon," Jardine called over his shoulder.

"Go
in to your family," Durand urged. "I'm spoiling your
supper. I'll sit in here and wait."

"I
couldn't eat with this on my mind," Jardine said. He bent to him
once more, as if in renewed effort to extract the confidence from him
that he sought. "Look, Lou. We've known each other since you
were twenty-three and I was twenty-eight. Since we were clerks
together in the shipping department of old man Morel, perched on
adjoining stools, slaving away. We got our promotions together. When
he wanted to promote you, you spoke for me. When he wanted to promote
me, I spoke for you. Finally, when we were ready, we pooled our
resources and entered into business together. Our own import house.
On a shoestring at first, even with the help of the money Auguste had
brought to me in marriage. And you remember those early days."

"I
remember, Allan."

"But
we didn't care. We said we'd rather work for ourselves, and fail,
than work for another man, and prosper. And we worked for
ourselves--and prospered. But there are things in this business of
ours, today, that cannot be taken out again. There is sweat, and
worry, and the high hopes of two young fellows, and the prime years
of their lives. Now you come to me and want to buy these things
from me, want me to sell them to you, as if they were sackfuls of
our green beans from Colombia-- How can I, even if I wanted to? How
can I set a price ?"

"You
can tell what the business is worth, in cold cash, that is on our
books. And give me half, in exchange for a quit-claim, a deed of
sale, whatever the necessary paper is. Forget I am Durand. I am just
anybody, I am a stranger who happens to have a fifty per cent
interest. Give its approximate value back to me in money, that is all
I ask you." He gestured violently. "Don't you see, Allan? I
can no longer participate in the business, I can no longer play any
part in it. I can't be here to do so, I can't stay here."

"But
why? There isn't anything you can have done--"

"There
is. There's one thing."

Jardine
was waiting, looking at him fixedly.

"Once
I tell you, Allan, I'm at your mercy. You needn't give me a cent, and
my half of the business goes to you, eventually, anyway-- by
default."